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Malnutrition and Protein Quality
Pages 1-7

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From page 1...
... Millions of emaciated mothers are giving birth to emaciated babies, many of whom soon die. The developing world produces more than 90 percent of all the underweight babies born each year.
From page 2...
... The world, it seemed, had a massive protein deficiency, and an international relief effort was mobilized. Development agencies eagerly supported programs for increasing protein supplies.
From page 3...
... This is of concern because most cereals are notably low in both protein content and protein quality, and conventional root crops have very low levels of protein. MALNUTRITION AND QUALITY PROTEIN Whether the problem is one of food quality or simply hunger, the children are affected most dramatically.
From page 4...
... Moreover, there is good evidence that quality protein stimulates appetite.9 7 Science should be able to answer this, but the true protein requirements of healthy, preschool children are in doubt, and the protein requirements of acutely malnourished infants are in even greater doubt. At present, there is no scientific proof that children can reach their full potential while consuming any of the major staple foods as their only source of protein.
From page 5...
... In addition, severe diarrhea further burdens intestines already wasted by malnutrition, making them less able to absorb nutrients. It is a vicious circle: a malnourished child gets a gastrointestinal or bronchial infection or an intestinal parasite; it stops eating; it deteriorates into extreme protein deficiency within a few days (wasting 10 Throughout Latin America, for example, mothers seldom or never use cooked beans as weaning foods, but sometimes they give the cooking broth to babies 3-4 months of age.
From page 6...
... Using this new scoring pattern to assess the capacity of diets in developing regions to satisfy human amino acid requirements, we have concluded that lysine is limiting in diets characteristic of a number of countries, such as Nigeria, Guatemala, and Ghana, for example. Furthermore, this new analysis indicates that if common hybrid cereals provide more than about half of the total dietary protein, there is a risk of a dietary lysine limitation.
From page 7...
... In turn, the malnutrition heightens the effects of the disease or parasite. To make matters worse, mothers frequently feed sick children a liquid food, often a thin gruel or sugar water, each of which is low in protein and exacerbates the problem.


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